The use of frangible packaging for distribution and sale of consumer products at the retail level is a common practice. Perhaps one of the best known examples of this type of packaging is the use of plastic bags for the packaging of fluid milk. Juice and a wide variety of other potable beverages are similarly packaged.
Devices intended to facilitate the opening of this kind of packaging, abound. Exemplary of such devices are the so-called "snippits" which typically have a short blade oriented along at least one of two convergent sides that bound a channel through which a portion of the packaging is manually guided. The blade contacts the packaging and severs a portion thereof, opening the packaging in such a way as to permit the contents to be dispensed. The contents are then poured into a rigid container. Alternatively the frangible container is placed in a rigid support (typically a container), opened, and the contents are dispensed from there directly.
French Patent No. A-1458519 (Berducone), Nov. 10, 1966, discloses a device having a piercing blade centrally positioned within a cylindrical tube. The device has an open top and bottom, such that a frangible package can be inserted within the tube to be pierced by the blade, so as to transfer the contents of the frangible package to another container, in the nature of a funnel.
The problem of pouring the containers from the frangible container into a separate container is that the contents are often spilled in the process, especially when the packaging is for example, a relatively light gauge polyethylene, and the contents are liquid. Although the contents can be dispensed directly from the frangible packaging when it is supported in a container, the contents often drip down the exterior of the packaging and lodge between it and the interior walls of the container. Since the exterior of the packaging is seldom washed by the consumer prior to being used, there is substantial risk of unwanted contaminants finding their way into the contents that become trapped between the packaging and the container. This liquid can flow back up the container when further liquid is subsequently dispensed therefrom and mixes with the contents being dispensed from the packaging for the first time. The result is at the very least unhygienic and the potential exists for microbiological hazard.
There continues to be a need for improved containers and means for dispensing contents from frangible packaging.